National Islamic Front Research Articles

Incoherent and strategic: the NIF/NCP minority policies in Sudan

ABSTRACT When the National Islamic Front (NIF) regime came to power in Sudan in1989, the international community was alarmed. Among other things, the treatment of Sudan’s minorities was a chief concern. For instance, in his ten-hour visit to Sudan in 1993, Pope John Paul II warned against imposing Islamic law on the country’s large Christian population. The concerns about the NIF regime’s treatment of minorities were due to its ideological background, since particular interpretations of Islamic law discriminate against minorities. The paper examines the regime’s policies toward the largest ethnic minorities in Sudan. It illustrates that the regime’s treatment of minorities lacked coherence toward both Christian and Muslim ethnic groups. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the regime’s minority policies were the result of shifts in alliances that followed internal divisions within the regime. As the Islamist leadership fractured, the ruling faction sought to coopt new allies, including ethnic groups, to strengthen its position in the face of relentless opposition from ousted Islamists. The paper draws on material collected through fieldwork as well as secondary sources to make its claims.

Minimal hegemony in Sudan: exploring the rise and fall of the National Islamic Front

ABSTRACT This article adopts a Gramscian approach to exploring the political economy behind the rise and fall of the National Islamic Front (NIF) in Sudan. It traces the NIF’s rise from the 1960s, with particular attention to the class character of its hegemonic project and shifting ideology. Reading its reign through the lens of minimal hegemony, it critically explores how neoliberal restructuring produced a narrow but powerful ruling bloc at the expense and marginalisation of different social groups, and how shifts in international relations intertwined with social transformations across Sudan to reproduce new forms of dependency. Paying attention to the uneven nature of capitalist development and resulting antagonisms during this period, it explores why the NIF was unable to forge an integral hegemony, ending with the crisis of authority that overthrew Bashir and the emergence of social forces that continue to contest its cultural, political and economic project.

An insight into the Sudanese NSR regime foreign policy decision-making (1989–1999)

ABSTRACTThe paper examines the Sudanese National Salvation Revolution (NSR) regime foreign policy decision-making in the initial years. It provides an overview of formal and informal policy structures that carried out the National Islamic Front’s (NIF) external agenda, and the way state institutions were undermined in their pursuit to formulate or contribute in foreign policy direction. It offers an insight into Dr Hassan al-Turabi’s dominant role and influence in policy-making as the éminence grise of the NIF in power. The paper deliberates the implications of the form and shape of policy-making set up that led to the fragmentation of the NIF and the ejection of al-Turabi from the regime power formula. The Sudanese present political landscape shaped largely by this period and the intervention of ideology in the external affairs of the state. The paper reflects on the outcome of that phase on current Sudanese political context on issues related to the regional and international arena, domestic sphere and institutions.

Sudan after Al-Turabi

The death of Sudanese Islamist ideologue Hassan Al-Turabi (1932–2016) warrants an examination of Al-Turabi’s and Islamism’s legacy in Sudan and in the broader Middle East and Africa regions. This article outlines the reasons for the rise of Islamism and extremism in these regions, and argues that this rise is rooted, among other factors, in local and global processes that exacerbated inequalities within and between countries in the two regions; and between these regions and other parts of the world. The article further examines the gendered politics of the National Islamic Front (nif)/National Congress Party (ncp) within a wider discussion of the rise of politicised Islam in the Middle East and North Africa. I highlight Islamist discourses and practices and the impact on women in Sudan.

Khartoum Goliath: SPLM/SPLA Update and Martial Theology during the Second Sudanese Civil War

Abstract During the Second Sudanese Civil War, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army published a weekly newspaper entitled SPLA/SPLM Update. This article builds on previous scholarship about the role of Christianity in the Sudanese civil conflict by revealing how the SPLM/SPLA Update was an essential medium of the conflict and contributed to its framing in religious terms. The Update published content that constituted a martial theology pitting the SPLA against the National Islamic Front, the party of the Muslim Brothers under Hassan Turabi's leadership. It interpreted events using biblical and ancient Israelite templates, placed circumstances in a narrative trajectory, and transformed political history into a spiritual chronicle. In so doing, it attracted readers beyond the geographic borders of Sudan, situating Christian Sudan in a contemporary global Sudanese diaspora while also reaching into the ancient past to locate the contemporary struggles of Sudanese Christians in an older story of divine chosenness.

Political Islam: An African Perspective

Political Islam continues to gain adherents across the African continent. In an attempt to understand why this is the case, this article explores the historical evolution of political Islam or Islamism. Three case studies are then provided to examine the implementation of this ideology—the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Sudan’s National Islamic Front and Al Shabab in Somalia. In conclusion, we examine the future of political Islam from the perspective of secularism.

Interview with Fatima Gailani

Ms Fatima Gailani was appointed as the President of the Afghan Red Crescent Society in 2005. She was born in 1954 in Kabul and is the daughter of Pir Sayed Ahmed Gailani, the leader of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. She lived in exile during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and acted as spokesperson in London for the Afghan Mujahideen. After her return to Afghanistan she was chosen as a delegate to the Emergency Loya Jirga (Grand Council) of June 2002 and was appointed as a constitution-drafting and -ratifying commissioner. Ms Gailani is the author of two books (The Mosques of London and a biography of Mohammad Musa Shafiq).

Repression of Sudanese civil society under the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party

Political change in Sudan gathered momentum after 1989, with the government introducing policies of control and restriction on the one hand, and an increasing number of civil society organisations seeking to establish and legitimise their (autonomous) identity and secure their continued existence on the other. This article concentrates uniquely on Sudanese non-governmental organisations and civil society (notably community-based organisations), focusing on the regime's institutions and social organisation and social and political opposition to the regime. It shows how the Islamic movement uses religion and power to sustain and protect a political system which has lost its credibility and legitimacy among many Sudanese. The article focuses on the rise of the National Islamic Front from a small political party, through a period as the third political force after the election of 1986, to a ruling party in the wake of the military coup of 1989. It discusses structures and processes of rule under the National Islamic Front, as well as the causes leading to the failure of its own Islamic project in the country. It suggests that the rise of an Islamic movement in Sudan is itself a reflection of a decline in local or grassroots initiatives for social change, and summarises relations between the National Islamic Front and non-governmental/citizen-based organisations. It concludes that even in the absence of democracy, and under a brutal authoritarian regime, non-governmental organisations can engage effectively and contribute to social and economic change, particularly those affecting the marginalised poor, by raising issues of concern about, and promoting alternatives to, political Islam.

Darfur and international justice

On March 4, 2009, Pre-Trial Chamber 1 of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it was charging Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Long anticipated, the arrest warrant was immediately used by al Bashir's National Islamic Front (NIF) regime as a pretext for expelling thirteen major international humanitarian organizations from Darfur and from other highly distressed regions of northern Sudan. In Darfur the expulsions represented over half the total humanitarian capacity. At the same time, Khartoum also shut down some of the most important Sudanese human service and human rights organizations. In all cases, the explanations offered for expulsions or shutdowns were not supported by any evidence made public. In particular, Khartoum's claim to have evidence that the aid organizations had cooperated with the ICC was patently false.

Refusing to Save Darfur

Darfur's ongoing agony continues to be attended by an obscene chorus of international mendacity, hypocrisy, and expediency. Not content simply to allow Khartoum's génocidaires to accomplish their ghastly task, the African Union, the Arab League, the Non-Aligned Movement, key Security Council members China and Russia, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference have all offered the National Islamic Front regime essential diplomatic and political support—now in the face of formal charges of genocide by the International Criminal Court (July 14, 2008). Indeed, China continues to provide military equipment that facilitates ethnically targeted destruction, as well as the critical commercial and capital investment that underwrites a booming economy in Khartoum and a small surrounding portion of the Nile River valley. Shamed by an international "genocide Olympics" campaign, Beijing has made various gestures designed to show support for Darfur over the past year and a half; some have been significant. But the leverage provided by China's hosting of the Games ended in August, and there can be little doubt that Beijing will resume business as usual with Khartoum.

When Sharica Governs: The Impasse of Religious Relations in Sudan

The rapid political rise of the National Islamic Front is examined within a broader and more complex context, particularly as it pertains to relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Sudan during the period from 1989 to the present. The regime's decision to change the nature of the South–North conflict into a jihad confrontation was determinative for the future of Islam in the Sudan, even though the regime's jihad discourse has been characterized by ambiguity and confusion. The Islamists have not produced a policy statement or a juristic work addressing the status of non-Muslims in the Sharica-based state and society they envisage, in spite of the 1991 Criminal Act and the 1998 Constitution of the Republic of Sudan. As a result, non-Muslims in Sudan are facing a difficult and testing time.

Interview with Ms Fatima Gailani, President of the Afghan Red Crescent Society

AbstractFatima Gailani has been serving as the president of the Afghan Red Crescent Society since 2004. She is the daughter of Pir Sayed Ahmed Gailani, the leader of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. After graduating from Malalai High School in Kabul, Ms Gailani obtained a BA and subsequently an MA in Persian Literature and Sufism in 1978 from the National University of Iran. She also earned an MA in Islamic Studies from the Muslim College in London in 1994. She lived in exile during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and acted as spokesperson in London for the Afghan Mujahideen. She attended the Bonne Conference on Afghanistan in 2001. After her return to Afghanistan she was chosen as a delegate to the Emergency Loya Jirga – Grand Council – of June 2002 and was appointed as a constitution drafting and ratifying commissioner. Ms Gailani is the author of two books (Mosques of London and a biography of Mohammed Mosa Shafi).

ACTIVATING THE GENDER LOCAL Transnational Ideologies and ?Women's Culture? in Northern Sudan

In an era of privileging the transnational at the expense of local practices, what can be said about the state of Middle East and North African (MENA) gender and women's studies? Some of the tensions of this paper reflect the ambivalence of MENA women's studies toward modernist and postmodernist/postcolonial stances and methods, especially the attempt to link local ethnographies and transnational practices. In previous research I have been arguing for recognition of the political transformative potential of localized practices and the need for a grounding of the transnational and international in the local and the personal. I am especially interested in linking the sexual and intimate with the transnational. My study of gender and sexuality in Muslim northern Sudan underscores the coexistence of two transnational institutions: the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) and its affiliated Sudanese Women's Union (SWU); and the Islamist state as represented by the National Islamic Front (NIF) and its past and current incarnations (the Muslim Brotherhood [Ikhwan] and the Popular National Congress, respectively). These two sociopolitical institutions, the SCP and the NIF, are seemingly poles apart on the Sudanese political spectrum and in their relationships with women. The SCP is commonly characterized as progressive, secular, gender egalitarian, and modernist; the NIF as conservative, religious, oppressive to women, and traditionalist. In fact, both are modernist movements; neither is secular; neither is gender egalitarian. In

"A Room of One's Own": Single Female Teachers Negotiating the Islamist Discourse in Sudan

“A Room of One’s Own”:Female Teachers Negotiating the Islamist Discourse in Sudan Karin Willemse In this article I will discuss how single female teachers in Darfur, West Sudan, negotiate their positions with reference to the Islamist moral discourse of the Sudanese government. This moral discourse seems to deny women the possibility of working. I base my argument mainly on anthropological research carried out in Kebkabiya, a small provincial town in northern Darfur, from 1990 to 1992 and in 1995.1 I conducted my research on market women and female teachers who were locally considered to belong to, respectively, the lowest and highest class of working women.2 Their experiences and opinions, particularly those of the single female teachers, are central to my argument here. My first stay in Kebkabiya was during a politically and socially turbulent period. A military coup in 1989 had put an end to the democratic government of the Sudan, which had come to power only in 1985. The coup leader, Lt. Omer el-Bashir, then aligned himself with the National Islamic Front (NIF) of Hassan al-Turabi.3 One of the main goals of the new government was the establishment of an Islamic state; that earned it the qualification "Islamist" or "Muslim fundamentalist."4 One way to attain the ideal of an Islamic state was to design a policy based on Islamic principles legitimated by a moral discourse that focused on the conduct of women in public life. For example, in 1991 the Khartoum State5 Public Order Act was implemented with the explicit goal of attaining segregation of women and men in public, particularly in the capital Khartoum. In Article 17 of the act, the working hours of [End Page 99] street vendors were restricted to five o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the evening. Not coincidentally, the period between dusk and dawn is the peak time for poor women who fend for their families by selling food and drinks to passers-by. The act was enforced by the so-called kasha politics, or street cleaning campaigns.6 Professional women too were targeted. Shortly after the coup in June 1989, women in prestigious public positions were sent home for early retirement or fired. Professional women were also closely scrutinized when appearing in public. Those who were thought to wear too much makeup, perfume, or jewelry, or too tight, short, or colorful clothing were scolded, beaten up, or taken to the police station by predominantly elderly male vigilantes.7 Apart from controlling the conduct of women in public, the government also tried to interfere on the issue of marriage by launching the zawag el-kora, or "mass weddings." Large numbers of couples were married collectively at ceremonies organized and orchestrated by the government. The government also undertook the sponsoring of these weddings, in kind and money. Donations might consist of beds and furniture as part of the dowry, sums of money up to £S10,000,8 and in some cases even a plot of land to build a house on. The weddings were broadcast in order to advertise the government-subsidized marriages and to show that the government was seriously tackling social problems.9 Hale states that the mass weddings were a way to help poor people get married.10 However, the mass weddings were specifically brought to the attention of employees working in the bureaucracy or para-statal organizations. One such circular issued in September 1996 addressed 170 unmarried employees of the 204 working at the Sudan broadcasting station: Dear brothers, sisters, and colleagues, on behalf of the [Sudan TV] trade union and board of directors, I call upon all staffers to make up their minds and get married. . . . Those interested will apply within three months . . . with incentives for those who do so. They will be married en masse at a ceremony organized and financed by the institution. We would like to assure those who will join this blessed occasion, even by marrying for the second time, that they will receive considerable assistance that will help, Allah willing, in their future life. . . . Allah has blessed marriage [End Page 100] and in Islam marriage is considered the completion of the...

Testimonies in Exile: Sudanese Gender Politics

Testimonies in Exile:Sudanese Gender Politics Sondra Hale Introduction Using political documents and women's testimonies from interviews collected over many years, I have been analyzing the debates and dynamics among Sudanese women in diaspora. This paper is a sampling of the differences among women activists and an attempt to subvert the totalizing of "women's movement" politics. Since the emergence of Sudanese women's studies as a field, and even before, Sudanese and Sudanists have considered the expression "the Sudanese women's movement" a code for the Sudanese Women's Union (WU), a wing of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP). Most writing on the subject, including my own, has been skewed toward northern Sudan and has also conflated most women's activism under the WU or its descendants or appropriators, such as the Union of Sudanese Women under the Sudan Socialist Union (SSU) of the Nimieri regime.1 Such totalizing of women's activism is being subverted by the more nuanced research being done by a new generation of Sudanese women scholars and others. At the risk of continuing to overgeneralize, I would like to categorize women's activism in Sudan into at least three broad types of movements/mobilizations or associations. One is represented by the secular left and consists of the WU, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the Sudan Alliance Forces (SAF), and the Sudanese Women's Rights Organization, one of the splinter groups that broke away from the WU. A second type comprises the cultural nationalists/religionists,including, among others, the women's wings of the Umma Party, the [End Page 83] Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the Islamist women of the National Islamic Front (NIF), and scattered Christian groups. A third type is represented by grassroots activists, including some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working both inside Sudan and in exile. In many ways, and despite the adversity that many groups in exile and women in southern Sudan and other marginalized areas (such as the Nuba area in the west) are facing, this has also been the most exciting time for debates about women's liberation in Sudan. We are seeing southern women challenge northern women for their racism and conservatism; younger women challenge the old leadership for their outdated ideas; secular and religious women's organizations each observing the organizing strategies of the other; women protesting war and militarism as a solution or even as good politics; and a number of women theorists and activists resisting the notion that politics consists only of political parties and the state. A new trend in the contemporary dynamic of Sudanese women's politics is the proliferation of liberal and leftist parties and fronts, a consequence of the many parties and politicians thrown into exile by the entrenched power of the Islamists as well as the splits that often characterize groups in diaspora. An example of a New Left organization was the Sudan Alliance Forces (SAF), once a dynamic new political formation committed to military action in the struggle against the Islamists. The affiliated women's group, Sudan Women's Alliance (SWA), is very active and diverse in terms of northerners and southerners. A number of SWA women emerged as leaders in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA, an umbrella group for opposition parties), including Nada Mustafa Ali, a scholar and activist whose visibility in the NDA rivals that of Women's Union member Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim. Many of these new groups, however, are not so easily dichotomized as "secular" or "religious," as their goals and strategies may be mixed, and religious members may have a secular standpoint in terms of separation of religion and state. The overall result of this diversity and secularization is that Sudanese women now have more options for political expression. Another consequence of the diversity is the attempts at broader coalitions that have emerged. The main strategy of coalition-building has been to invite many groups to a forum or convention. Examples are the [End Page 84] Sudanese Women's Forum, which convened in Cairo in 1998, and the Sudan National Women's Convention, held in Kampala, Uganda, in March 2002. Azza Anis, a progressive northerner now in exile, argues that the recent proliferation of...

Structures of government in the Islamic republic of Sudan: the question of legitimacy and the 1998 draft constitution

Political legitimacy is an essential feature of contemporary statehood in the Islamic Republic of Sudan, given its stormy history since 1983 and the subsequent takeover by Dr. Hasan Turabi's National Islamic Front. Now, however, religious and minority rights have been inextricably mixed, thus damaging the ruling elite's claim to legitimacy. This article explores this dilemma and the steps Sudan's government has taken to improve its image in Europe.

Politics and Islam in contemporary Sudan

Politics and Islam in Contemporary Sudan, by Abdel Salam Sidahmed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. xiv + 226 pages. Notes to p. 242. Index to p. 249. $55. For the past ten years. the Sudan has been in the international spotlight as a result of its prolonged civil war and related disasters, as well as the political orientation of its current regime. The present Sudanese government came to power through a military coup in June 1989. Since then, it has engaged in what it sees as a process of radical Islamization of state and society. This book analyzes the background of these developments and the role of Islamic discourse in contemporary Sudanese politics by synthesizing the existing literature on the political and economic history of the Sudan. Abdel Salam Sidahmed begins the discussion by pointing out that the ascendancy of the Islamists in the Sudan is a paradox in view of the country's history and its complex social structure. The Sudan was a late convert to Islam in comparison to north and west African countries. Moreover, the spread of Islam in the Sudan occurred over centuries and was associated closely with sufi tariqas (brotherhoods). which gave Islam in the Sudan a particular character. Finally, the Sudan is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society with a sizeable non-Muslim population. According to the author, the predominance of the Islamists in the Sudan today has its roots in the country's recent past, particularly the socio-political transformation of Sudanese society under British colonial rule (1898-1956), and in the nature of the political forces that held power in the post-independence period. The author has adopted a historical approach and has centered his analysis on the socioeconomic transformation of Sudanese society to explain the rise and the ideology of the Islamist movement. The book is divided into seven chapters, and the subjects are arranged in chronological order. The first chapter examines the political and economic impact of British colonial rule on Sudanese society, the rise of Sudanese nationalism, and the decolonization process. The second chapter focuses on political developments during the period 1956-58. Chapter three discusses the first military takeover in 1958, the popular uprising that brought it down in October 1964, and the establishment and failures of the Second Democracy, i.e., the period of parliamentary rule from 1965 to 1969. The next chapter is devoted to the debate on the Islamic constitution, which dominated Sudanese politics in the late 1960s, and the political crises that led to the military coup of General Ja`far Numayri in 1969. The fifth chapter focuses on political developments under Numayri's regime and on the conditions that led to the emergence of the Islamic Charter Front as a dominant force in Sudanese society. This group in the mid-1980s came to be known as the National Islamic Front. The last two chapters examine Sudanese politics from 1985 to the mid-1990s, focusing on such topics as the civil war, peace efforts, the Islamists' military takeover in 1989, and their subsequent effort to establish an Islamic state in the Sudan. Sidahmed argues that the strong association of Islam and politics in the Sudan can be traced to the colonial period and the development of nationalism. …

Le Front national islamique

The National Islamic Front. The National Islamic Front has developed a theoretical discourse around the issue of democratic practice and has shown considerable flexibility in its political activities. Its main goal was to secure for itself a closer relationship to the centre of political power, even if that implied a shift in its alliance policy. The aim of this paper is to underline the major historical elements within the islamist movement and to put into perspective Hassan el-Turabi’s strategy.

Les ambitions internationales du Soudan islamiste

The international ambitions of the islamic Sudan. Foreign policy, both formal and popular, is prominent in the Islamic agenda of the Sudanese regime. The Gulf war created a window of opportunity to promote the National Islamic Front at an international level, and to deal with Islamic movements as well as States. This paper provides a short analysis of the Sudanese context and a description of the new foreign relations of the NIF or the Sudanese State with its regional and international environment. The case of the ties with some Asian countries is not studied.

Self-Determination: A Solution to the Sudan Problem

Self-Determination: A Solution to the Sudan Problem Sam L. Laki Central State University, Ohio South Sudan is different from North Sudan in nearly every aspectethnicity , culture, history, religion and geography. It was misguided for the British colonial administration, under pressure from Egypt, North Sudan, and Britain, to annex South Sudan to North Sudan arbitrarily. Since Sudan's independence from Britain in 1956, the people of South Sudan have been subjected to racial, social, and religious discrimination. They have been relegated to second-class citizenry in their own country. North Sudan's sectarian parties have a vision of the country deeply rooted in sharia (Islamic) law, and correspondingly have pursued vigorously the policy of Islamicization and Arabization of South Sudan. The current National Islamic Front (NIF) government of Lt. General Omer El Bashir brags openly of its success in the application of the sharia law that has brought misery and immense suffering to the African population of Sudan. It is my contention that future changes of leadership in Khartoum will not bring any improvement to the conditions of the people of South Sudan. I would like to make it clear at the outset that the 'Sudan problem' is unique and has no comparison or similarity whatsoever with any local, regional or national problem in any African country. Precolonial Period The people of North Sudan are Muslims who lay claim to some form of Arab descent, and the South Sudanese are Africans who practice their own African beliefs mixed with Christianity. The diverse population speaks 400 different languages. This ethnic, religious, and racial mixture has been the root cause of the identity crises in Sudan.©Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Vol. 3, No. 2 (New Series) 1996, pp. 7-20 8 Sam L. Laki Before the advent of the Anglo-Egyptian colonial era in 1898, the Arabs and Africans lived apart with nothing in common. The TurcoEgyptian administration (Turkiyya), from 1820-1881, and the Mahdi administration (Mahdiyya), from 1881-1898, never attained any measure of control over South Sudan. South Sudan remained a theater of war between the intruders and the indigenous populations. The legacy of the notorious slave trade poisoned the relationship between the people of South Sudan and North Sudan to an extent that the relationship between the Arabs and Africans had been characterized by hatred and violence. The Arabs plundered South Sudan looking for ivory and slaves. It is fair to say that the only contact the two peoples had was through the slave trade, when the North Sudanese Arabs made many incursions into South Sudan in search of loot and people to enslave. North Sudanese retainers and slave traders pillaged and disrupted life in South Sudan. This invasion of South Sudanese territory by the Arabs was conducted with the tacit approval of the Islamic leadership. It suffices to say that the Sudan is an artificial creation of Britain, Egypt and elites of North Sudan. The people of South Sudan have never been a party to it. The Condominium Period The British colonial policy was to foster Islamic culture in North Sudan and indigenous African culture in South Sudan. Keeping the two nationalities separate was an honest recognition by the British of the distinct difference in culture, religion, peoples and geography. The 1918 closed districts and passports ordinances sealed off South Sudan from Arab influence until the reversal of the "Southern policy" in 1947. The governor-general, Sir Harold McMichael, was responsible for the institution of the "Southern Policy," meant to keep the Africans separate from the North Sudanese. This policy had been designed to close South Sudan from the external Arab influence with the ostensible intention of preserving indigenous African customs, traditions and beliefs. The policy was a total failure because the Anglo-Egyptian colonial administration also never engaged itself in any form of social, political, or economic development of South Sudan. Self-Determination: A Solution to the Sudan Problem 9 As mentioned above, North Sudanese claim Arab ancestry and identify with Arab culture, and South Sudanese have African ancestry and identify with African culture. The distinct difference between the African Sudanese and the Arabs has given birth to the "nationality question" at the core of...